Get an Incredible View of Earth From 19 Miles Up — For a Cool $75K

Image: World View

It’s not space. It’s more like a high-altitude vacation. A new Arizona company is joining the outer edges of the tourism industry to find passengers who want to see a dark sky and the curvature of the Earth, all without boarding a sub-orbital rocket and paying the insane entry price.

“Seeing the Earth hanging in the ink-black void of space will help people realize our connection to our home planet and to the universe around us,” World View CEO Jane Poynter said in a statement today. “It is also our goal to open up a whole new realm for exercising human curiosity, scientific research and education.”

Like the Spain-based zero2infinity, World View is planning rides in a relatively spacious gondola, suspended beneath a balloon, that will carry passengers to around 100,000 feet. The view is a long ways from Virgin Galactic’s plans for sub-orbital rocket rides at 360,000 feet, but the view from a gondola will last for a few hours (or more). It’s also a lot cheaper at $75,000, compared to the current ticket price of $250,000 for a ride on Virgin’s SpaceShipTwo which will only spend a few minutes at the peak of its flight before descending back to earth.

The ability to spend hours at 100,000 feet, does offer new opportunities, even if it doesn’t include the weightlessness being touted by Virgin Galactic’s parabolic flight path. The helium balloon could be launched at night to offer a spectacular sunrise opportunity with pretty much all of the atmosphere below you, and the darkness of space remaining above you even after the sun is up.

Just as Virgin Galactic isn’t the only company planning rocket propelled sub-orbital tourism rides — XCOR’s Lynx is a single passenger rocket plane — World View isn’t the alone in looking to offer a peaceful high altitude balloon ride. Zero2infinity’s is planning a similar experience to around 120,000 feet. Both companies are eager to point out the passenger view from the quiet balloon will be close to the same view offered by the rocket powered vehicles flying much higher. World View shared a copy of a letter from the Federal Aviation Administration saying that the company’s six passenger, two pilot gondola will qualify as a space vehicle because the conditions at 100,000 feet requires the same kind of protection as those that actually enter space, “because a person would rapidly experience fatal decompression.”

Image: World View

There is no actual line where the atmosphere ends and where space begins, so it’s common for many endeavors to include “space” as part of the title. Red Bull referred to Felix Baumgartner’s record setting jump as a mission to the edge of space. In fact, it used the same basic idea that World View and zero2infinity are offering with a pressurized gondola, and a lightweight balloon. Though the latter two companies have no plans on making the passengers exit at altitude for a supersonic return to earth.

The highest flying airplanes can fly at up to about 70,000 feet. Some jets have made “zoom” flight past 100,000 feet. But with only a few percent of the atmosphere at that altitude, the normal flight controls aren’t useful and they must use small rocket thrusters to maneuver.

Most definitions of space are less about a true scientific number, rather they opt for nice round numbers well above the atmosphere. Virgin Galactic and the Lynx both plan on climbing above the Karman line, an arbitrary and metric based definition of space at 100 kilometers altitude (62 miles or 328,000 feet). At that altitude you are definitely above anything that resembles the atmosphere. Pilots in the X-15 winged rocket plane were given astronaut wings for flights above 50 miles.

World View says it expects to launch its balloon and gondola from several locations around the United States. Eventually it could expand operations worldwide. Like zero2infinity’s bloon, World View’s gondola will be flown back to earth beneath a paraglider-type wing that will provided added range and maneuverability.

World View has not yet begun flight testing of its system, but is hoping for passenger flights as early as 2016. Zero2infinity recently tested a scale version of its system, including lifting the inflatable “pod” it is planning for passengers to more than 88,000 feet.